This project reviewed the methodology used in previous ecological risk assessment (ERA) approaches in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and then CSIRO outlined a tiered risk assessment methodology that would provide a systematic, objective and transparent approach to quantify the relative risk of pesticides, nutrients and sediment to the GBR. This approach would allow a ranking of the rivers in the GBR based on exceedance of GBRMPA water quality guidelines. A meta-database was compiled to determine the availability of data for the risk assessment. In the risk assessment Tiers 1-4 would deal with data collected at any location as long as they were time stamped and location stamped and would not be reliant only on high-frequency data. By contrast, Tier 5 would need time series data recorded at many locations. The higher data requirements for the Tier 5 level of the risk assessment was the rationale for proposing a tiered risk assessment approach.

Datasets

This project undertook a scoping study to develop a robust approach that will allow us in Phase 2 to carry out an ecological risk assessment (ERA) of nutrients, fine suspended sediments, and pesticides used in agriculture in the GBR region including ranking the relative risk of individual contaminants originating from priority catchments to the GBR ecosystems using a systematic, objective and transparent approach.